The mobile space is growing into a mammoth one, and is understandably seeing many start-ups mushroom. Mango Technologies recently came out with an application framework for low-cost terminal devices like mobile phones, media players, etc. This is the lowest-memory-footprint solution in its segment, with differentiating features for terminal devices, and was recognised as a market-facing innovation by NASSCOM this year. Lekh Joshi, co-founder and CTO, Mango Technologies Pvt Ltd, elaborates on this innovation, as well as on the general culture of innovation prevalent in the organisation.

How important is innovation in a tech firm like yours, and how do you keep up the vibes of innovation in your organisation?

Creativity is an indicator to the health of an organisation. The intellectual capital shall rise through innovation when:

• There is contentment at the individual and team level, beyond office life.
• There is a higher level of involvement of employees in company affairs.
• Work becomes an expression of joy instead of being perceived as a source of joy.
• There is a good blend of knowledge bases; i.e., when people with different domain expertise come together to create.
• People are aware and responsive to the needs of society.

It needs to be nurtured, and cannot be enforced. In our organisation, we keep the atmosphere lively, and try to lead by example. The core team itself is always bubbling with ideas, and this inspires all.

You've won the recognition for a market-facing innovation. How important do you think this is, in comparison to the other two broad types--process and input innovations?

The other categories are also important for the success of an organisation, and we need to learn from the other esteemed organisations as we grow bigger. For a start-up, identifying and addressing the market right, is a critical success factor.

Can you please tell us more about your application framework for low-cost terminal devices, and elaborate a bit on the innovation that won you this award?

Mango Technologies' application framework software for mobile devices, being modular and the thinnest in the segment, results in significant cost and time reduction at multiple levels in the phone development cycle.

The Mango solution empowers OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), ODMs (original design manufacturers) or chipset vendors/operators, with the flexibility to churn out handsets with varied flavours of the UI (user interface), and opens up a big opportunity for VAS (value-added services) applications in the low-cost phones. The rich features that were earlier available only on the high-end phone segment can now be offered for the ULC (ultra low cost) segment.

This would spawn multiple revenue streams for phone manufacturers, application providers and operators, like location-based services, local search, mobile banking, map navigation and traffic channels, on your low-cost phones. We expect this solution to take the mobile world closer to the "application on demand" scenario.